Ken

Ken  24"x49"  encaustic, toad and videotape

Barbie and Ken are matching pieces.  They're not a traditional diptych because they don't need to be hung together.  They don't match in the traditional sense but rather the thought, age and stage of each piece's concept is the match.  They are both conceptual pieces, one of a female and one of a male at age 40.

The most difficult work of art to understand is often a conceptual piece.  It takes effort on the part of the artist to convey the thought of the piece. Likewise, it takes effort on the part of the viewer to let go of  preconceptions of what a piece of art should be and ask instead what is this piece trying to say.

I'm sure there are pieces of art that seem crazy to the majority of the public and also have nothing to say.  However, I find that if there is a soup can sitting on the floor across from a film projector in a pile of candy, there's generally something that is being said.  Now when you see pieces such as that, you can say, "Ah, I bet that's a conceptual piece of art" and you will most likely be right.

Ken is conceptual.  Ken has 150 or so individually crafted orbs of videotape merged together into a loose rectangular mass.  There are a few manly-hued primary colors of encaustic wax and a bit of dark colored netting hiding amongst the videotape.  Oh and there's a small dead toad hiding in the corner.  A uniform, sensual 1/2 inch thick layer of natural beeswax makes the base.

A toad?  "What would posses a person to do that?" I've had many people ask.  After my previous blog, Frenzy, with the dead bees, I thought an explanation would be helpful.  I found the toad outside one evening while I was working on Ken.  He was already dead and dried out, perfectly posed like he is in the piece.  He's been dipped in the encaustic wax so he's perfectly preserved forever. The purpose of the toad in the piece is to say that even though you're a 40-something man, you still have a dead toad in your pocket, as you would as a 4 year old boy.

Conversely, the videotape, the scale and the smoothness of the wax show how you're a 40-something man.  You are self-assured, you know what you like, you enjoy techno-toys, such as the latest video-flat screen-sub-woofer-whatever-it-is that men need to be men.  Ken is clean and sexy with a sleek, media-room style while still being a little boy underneath his facade.  Ken is a complex man in all the most wonderful ways.